Valuing Black Lives Global Summit

The Valuing Black Lives Global Emotional Emancipation Summit is a solutions-focused, action-oriented forum developed and presented by CHN, in collaboration with the Association of Black Psychologists. This Summit brings together leaders of African ancestry from around the world to develop action plans to free ourselves and our children from the centuries-old anti-Black narrative–once and for all.

The 2015, 2016, and 2017 Summits were held in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the Annual Legislative Conference of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. Participants have described the Summit as “empowering, liberating, groundbreaking, inspiring, enlightening, and healing.”

In 2016, participants voted to support a narrative-changing social media campaign called #ImAfricanBornIn_______WeAreOne. The campaign is designed to bring Black people across the Diaspora closer to each other and closer to Africa. Every year in the week surrounding Africa Day (May 25th), we share our stories online as a basis for future collaboration across national borders. For more information, please visit www.imafricanbornin.com.

In 2018, we took our Summit on the road with the Global Truth Campaign and Tour, which we launched from CHN’s birthplace of New Haven, CT, on October 12, 13, and 14.

In August 2019, the Truth Tour will arrive in Richmond, VA, where CHN will host its 2019 Valuing Black Lives Global Summit. There, we will mark the 400th anniversary of the first recorded forced arrival of Africans in the United States. And we will issue our Call to the African Union and the Diaspora to put the matter of emotional emancipation—freedom from the ideology of White superiority and Black inferiority—at the top of the global African agenda.

The 2019 Summit will be held on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University and co-hosted by the VCU African American Studies Department. Invitees will include representatives of the African Union, governments, and NGOs across the Diaspora. We will focus on developing strategies for strengthening and deepening the global grassroots movement for emotional emancipation in 2020 and beyond.